National Recovery is Underway, Both from Trump and the Virus

  

This winter seems a little colder than last, but still no appreciable snow here in DC. I’m not complaining, mind you. Still dawn and dusk have their own wintry beauty.

 

While the fence now encircling the Capitol may be necessary in the short-term, I hope it can be removed in the near future, welcoming visitors back into the building. Donald Trump has seriously damaged our country and our government and eroded the basic trust that citizens have in each other. The sooner he can be removed from public life, the better. As a serial liar, no wonder he doesn’t want to testify under oath at his second impeachment trial. Republicans in Congress are in a bind. They would like to take back their party by keeping Trump from running again, but they don’t dare face Trump-endorsed primary candidates.

Trump's DC hotel is hiking prices for March 4 - the day QAnon followers think the former president will be sworn-in again.

According to a recent poll, 56% of Americans say Trump should be convicted and barred from holding future office, and 43% say he should not be. (Poll was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News.) February 7, 2021, Business Insider

          

Apparently, even if Trump’s impeachment does not go through this second time, he can still be barred from future office by majority vote, which is important both for our country and the Republican Party.

This year, 2021, marks the 60^th anniversary of the Peace Corps. For now, all volunteers have been called home, though plans are in the works to send volunteers with previous service to short-term stints by the middle or end of 2021. The return date for regular first-time volunteers is uncertain.

 In Burma or Myanmar, folks are beating pots and pans, calling for the return of Aung San Suu Kyi, who reportedly has been jailed after being accused of importing unauthorized Walkie-Talkies. Pot banging in protest is more common than in celebration, as I was doing on inauguration day. AP, Hundreds protest coup in Myanmar as resistance spreads, https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-civil-disobedience-arrests-yangon-a576dcd73070070877e8d567ec5e8a5c

         

      

Via various internet sources, more than 100 friends around the world have told me that they "heard" my unorthodox pot-banging in celebration, so here I am again.

Pope Francis has appointed women to two Vatican posts previously held only by men. One of the appointments is to a high position in the bishop's synod, which helps decide Catholic rules. This is progress, but arduously slow progress.

The following items relate to my volunteer work as Caribbean coordinator for Amnesty Int’l USA:

Reuters, Cuba opens door to most small business initiatives, https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/cuba-opens-door-most-small-165840421.html

Miami Herald, Biden’s redo of Obama’s historic Cuba policy shouldn’t ignore Cuban Americans in Miami | Opinion, https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-redo-obama-historic-cuba-144405871.html

AP, Taiwan opens trade office in Guyana in diplomatic win

Haiti Braces for Unrest as President Refuses to Step Down, NY Times, Feb. 7, 20201, Haiti is “on the verge of explosion,” the country’s Episcopal bishops say. Many accuse the government of supporting gangs to stay in power as a constitutional crisis looms.

Here’s a little known historical observation about Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, two countries that I’ve often visited and which fall under my volunteer jurisdiction as Caribbean coordinator for Amnesty International USA. The Dominican Republic is one of the only countries in Latin America that celebrates its independence not from its European colonizer but from its neighbor, Haiti, on February 27th, 1844. What is not celebrated or even discussed in Dominican history is that on February 9th, 1822, Haiti also abolished slavery in the Dominican Republic. This abolition was followed by a 22-year period in which the entire island was under Haitian rule that has defined Dominican identity and nationalism.

US immigration Exclusive: Ice cancels deportation flight to Africa after claims of brutality, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/04/ice-cancels-deportation-flight-african-asylum-seekers-brutality

President Biden has needed to sign a flurry executive orders just to roll back the many harmful directives of the Trump administration. Already, the virus is coming under better control and initiatives to tackle the economic fallout are underway. Next, Biden will have to establish more positive initiatives of his own. Democrats need to take advantage of the next 2 years to get things done. Our country is slowly starting to return to “normal” after Donald Trump’s onslaught.

Joe Biden is already age 78, just a few years my junior. Hope he has the intellect and energy to continue for the next 4 years and to be reelected in 2024, when he would be 82. If he is reelected and serves out a second term, he’d be 86 at the end. When referencing “four score and seven years,” Abraham Lincoln was referring back to the Declaration of Independence 87 years prior but since then, 87 has sometimes become shorthand for a desired lifespan, so let’s hope President Biden lives at least to that age. My friend Jimmy Carter, now age 96, has survived far beyond. Age may be only a number, but none of us immortal and years do take their toll. I pray for Mr. Biden’s continued good health and stamina.

Mitt Romney Proposes $350 Monthly Child Allowance Bravo to Republican Senator Romney for his proposal. Such a monthly payment would be very helpful to families. However, apparently some of the cost would be offset by eliminating other perks.

Members of my own family barely scraping by right now would certainly benefit from a child allowance. Only too well do I remember being a single mother trying to get by on my earnings while needing childcare and receiving inadequate support from my kids’ father. Since too few babies are now being born in our country to support future retirees, a child allowance might be an incentive to produce more workers for the future. Otherwise, unless immigration is opened up, our country will go the way of Japan and Europe, becoming top-heavy with senior citizens.  At the same time, as a senior myself and someone who has faced age discrimination, I’d like to see more job opportunities open up for our age group to help fill the employment gap.

People are eating out more now and just going out anywhere because they’re simply tired of staying home. Gambling with the future and the possibility of contagion is a little scary, but also a little exciting, which is partly why folks are taking the risk.

 A bilingual friend, born in Cuba, rails against the “anglicization” of Spanish in the United States and with the use of Spanglish, an amalgamation of English and Spanish. Literal translation of English-language ads and news story items into Spanish does lead to strange and awkward configurations. However, his attempt to convert the millions of Spanish speakers in this country into grammarians is doomed to failure in my view. No language remains pure and unchanging over time, it evolves, like any human endeavor. It’s only natural that Spanish speakers immersed in a mostly English language milieu will adapt their language usage accordingly.

Now, with so many folks working from home, I think back to the days in the 1980’s and ‘90’s when I commuted daily from my home on Capitol Hill to work, first out to Shady Grove, then to Bethesda, always having to rush back to care for my kids as a single mother. Of course, that was before computers had evolved and I might have been distracted by my kids if working from home, but I’d have gladly given up the daily commute.

Daughter Stephanie, who visited recently, discovered some photos I took in Central America which am sharing here. I hope they convey some of the nostalgia I feel for that part of the world and why I

consider myself bicultural as well as bilingual. I’ve posted them with a copyright sign just in case someone copies them, which is fine, but I’d like to get credit and also not have someone else possibly profit from their use.

Why do I love this part of the world? Little Guatemalan sisters are sitting together on the city sidewalk making avocado sales completely on their own. Mom is nowhere to be seen. The older one looks especially self-assured. Another sidewalk vendor sells her goods while she works. A young man makes a living with his homemade boat. If some of these folks should want to come here to live, our country would be enriched by their enterprising spirit.

I’ve lived quite a few years already, glad to have friends of various ethnicities and nationalities around the world, who, thanks to the internet, have been concerned about me lately, given the proximity of my home to the Capitol. Though I carry a US passport, I do feel like a world citizen and have felt welcome everywhere, even in rural Thailand and the remote deserts of South Sudan. In Latin America, I often “pass” as a native of the region, not immediately identified as a gringa. Being completely bilingual and bicultural, I began working as a Spanish interpreter and translator in my later years. All other bilingual interpreters encountered in my interpretation work have been native Spanish speakers, I alone the native English speaker. 

In spite of extraordinary challenges and tragedies, I feel privileged to have had so much variety in my life and to have had experiences that few native-born neighbors and other older ladies of my acquaintance share. At age 21, as a recent college graduate, I married a man who was blind and of Korean descent who had never held a job but who, with my help and support, went on to greater things. I’ve had children by both birth and adoption, including one adopted from Colombia and a foster son from Cuba. Various ethnicities and races are represented in my family. Tragedy has also visited us. Losing a young person, like my son and foster son, has been especially hard and unexpected, leaving a big hole in my heart. My brother, who died recently at age 80, had already lived a full life and died still at the peak of his success, so while I do miss him, his loss is a little easier to bear. No one really wants to die, but neither would we want to live forever. 

I’ve lived in or traveled to more than 45 countries, almost never to a tourist destination, usually on a humanitarian mission. I joined the Peace Corps in Honduras at age 62 and stayed more than a year beyond the usual term, returning yearly ever since on volunteer assignments. As mentioned in my Confessions book, one of my Honduran neighbors called me “a gringa with a Latina’s heart.” In my quiet way, I do feel able to connect with other people of all types and ages, including visitors from other countries with whom I’m still in touch. If I had a chance to visit them, I know they would receive me. Most of my neighbors have followed a more traditional trajectory, but I appreciate the scope and variety of my own path. I cannot imagine ever going into assisted living or a nursing home or even in a senior complex. I’d rather take my chances staying in my own venerable 3-story home, stairs and all. None of us will live forever, but we should live as much as possible as we like.